Erin Wallace on why she's hoping 2025 will be her year after Olympic near miss

Yahoo

06-03-2025

So acute was her disappointment at missing out on a place in Team GB for Paris 2024, Erin Wallace could barely bring herself to watch more than a few minutes of last summer's Olympic Games.
Despite having dipped under the Olympic 800m qualifying mark with a personal best run of 1 minute 59.20 seconds last summer, she fell victim to the fact that women's 800m running in Britain is currently stronger than it's ever been, with even a sub two-minute effort not enough to secure selection.
Coming so close to becoming an Olympian before missing out was, admits Wallace, a bitter pill to swallow at the time.
'I found it really hard to watch Paris,' the Glaswegian says.
'I watched the girls I train with but then I'd turn the television off. And when the second season of the 'Sprint' documentary came out, I knew it centred around Paris, which I knew would upset me, so I didn't watch.'
As the disappointment of missing the Olympics faded, Wallace was able to take many positives from last year, notably that she broke two minutes twice in one season for the first time in her career and ran world-class times more regularly than ever before.
She took those positives into her winter training block which, given the company she mixes with in day in, day out, has been invaluable.
Wallace is part of Trevor Painter and Jenny Meadows' Manchester-based training group, which also includes Olympic 800m champion, Keely Hodgkinson and Olympic 1500m medallist, Georgia Bell, as well as a wealth of other Olympians and internationalists. And so, given the calibre of Wallace's training partners, it comes as little surprise that she's had a strenuous winter.
'The training is very, very tough. I do have moments when I stop and think wow, this is just relentless,' the 24-year-old says.
'It could get demoralising getting beaten so often in training but then I remind myself that these athletes I'm up against are so good.
'I go into my sessions just trying to do the best I can and don't compare myself too much to other people. I need to remember that these girls are some of the very best in the world and the reason why they're running so fast is they work extremely hard in training. So I just focus on doing that too."
(Image: Getty Images/ Sam Mellish)
Wallace has begun 2025 in encouraging fashion, with some strong early-season runs, as well as her fourth-place finish at last month's British Indoor Championships, enough to ensure selection for GB's squad for the European Indoor Championships, which begin today in the Dutch city of Apeldoorn.
Wallace will run the 800m and is one of two Scots in GB's 44-strong team in the Netherlands, with her fellow Giffnock North athlete Neil Gourley hopeful of improving upon the silver medal he won in the 1500m in 2023.
Despite a stellar indoor season, Wallace remains somewhat dissatisfied that she's not been able to showcase just how fit she currently feels and while indoor running rarely produces lightening-quick times, she's hopeful she can produce a several good performances over the next few days, as well gain some useful experience from being part of yet another GB team.
'My indoor season's gone okay so far, although I feel like I'm training better than my results have shown,' she says
'I'm looking forward to the Europeans - indoors is never the main priority of the year, but of course this week is a great opportunity for me. It'll give me another shot at championship running over 800 metres and will be a stepping-stone towards the summer.'
Already, Wallace has one eye on the outdoor season, with the focal point being the World Championships in Japan in September.
She's well aware that the fact she's battling Hodgkinson, as well as Jemma Reekie, Pheobe Gill and several others for a place in this Worlds team, meaning selection will be no mean feat but given her constant progression, she's remaining open-mined to anything potentially happening.
'This season will be long, and I'll do some 1500s as well as 800s,' she says.
"The World Champs team will obviously be a very hard team to make so I have to just focus on what I'm doing and try and run as well as I can. Things can change a lot between now and September - I could come out at the start of the summer and run a super-fast time and be in a great position for the Worlds, so we'll see.'